The Great Hall

 The Sorting Hat

The hat talked...or at least appeared to. I used a text to speech program online that had a British accent, which sounded very similar to Sorting Hat in the movie. I wrote a custom messages for each of my students and then recorded it with my iphone. During the sorting, I held the phone behind the hat. Then I just clicked on the student's name, and the hat would talk and sort them. I even had the hat sing a special welcome song before the sorting! 

Example Sorting Messages:

Ah…you have a clever mind…plenty of courage too I see…and you love a challenge…you are a tough one…let me see…you want to go where? Are you sure? I think I know best… I am a hat after all …and I see it plainly all here in your head… You will do well in Hippogriff!

Ah...I see...creative and clever... but athletic and resourceful too...I see you have a need to explore and take risk...well I know just what to do with a mind like that...better be Phoenix!

Now don’t worry…I have a mouth..but I don’t bite…let’s have a look in your head…I see…I see… well…This is easy…you’ll do well in Dragons!

I divided the classroom into seven different sections. Each section represents a different location. The Great Hall, the Owlery, Herbology/Care of Magical Creatures, the Library, Headmaster's Office, Common Room, and Diagon Alley. Each blog post will highlight a different location in the classroom.

The main seating area represents the Great Hall. 

I keep track of the house point on the whiteboard. 

For the ceiling, I made 60 floating candles and hung them up in rows with fishing line. I used yellow construction paper and covered the flame with glitter. It came out very nice if I do say so myself.

Since this is Hogwarts International School for Muggles, our houses are different. We have three houses at our Hogwarts. The houses are Dragons, Phoenix, and Hippogriffs. Each house has their own personality traits that are most valued. The sorting hat took each student's personality into consideration when sorting them into their houses.

The pixies came out better than I expected. I found some pixie pictures online and added blue wings to them. When I hung them on the wall, I bent their arms, legs, and wings out a bit. Now when the heat or air conditioner comes on, they flutter about and look like they are moving.

This is the jobs board. Every student in my class has a job. The jobs change once a month. If the students do their jobs well, they can earn galleons to spend in Diagon Alley. My students love having a way to earn galleons. Everyone's favorite job is Prefect, because Prefects are allowed to take up to 5 points if they see any rule breaking. So far, the prefects have done a wonderful job not abusing their power and this has taught them that being in charge isn't always easy.

If anything bad happens in the room, we blame it on Peeves.